" This is not the taunt of
enemies, but the warning of friends. Is it quite safe to disregard it--to
despise it? Is there no danger to liberty itself in discarding the
earliest practice and first precept of our ancient faith? In our greedy
chase to make profit of the negro, let us beware lest we "cancel and tear
in pieces" even the white man's charter of freedom.
Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify
it. Let us turn and wash it white in the spirit, if not the blood, of the
Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of "moral right," back
upon its existing legal rights and its arguments of "necessity." Let us
return it to the position our fathers gave it, and there let it rest in
peace. Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the
practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let North and South, let
all Americans--let all lovers of liberty everywhere join in the great and
good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but we
shall have so saved it as to make and to keep it forever worthy of the
saving. We shall have so saved it that the succeeding millions of free
happy people the world over shall rise up and call us blessed to the
latest generations.
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